Regime rolls NASA director under the…um, er…Shuttle

The claim by NASA Director Charles Bolden that one of the primary missions of the space agency was to increase Muslim self esteem (previous post here), was recently denied by the regime. Apparently public outrage at this ridiculous policy was too much for our dear comrade leader. There’s more to the story, however, as this post (from HotAir) points out.

Yesterday, after a week of uproar over NASA administrator Charles Bolden’s interview on Al-Jazeera, the White House denied that Bolden had been given objectives for outreach to Muslim countries for self-esteem projects that ignored actual space objectives. That came as news to Rep. Pete Olson, the ranking Republican on the committee that oversees NASA. A month ago, Bolden informed Olson of his new mission, and Olson accused the Obama administration of lying about it to escape criticism:

The White House is disavowing a plan to have NASA conduct outreach to Muslim countries, but a congressman who talked to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden about that plan last month said the initiative was very real until somebody slammed the brakes on it.

Rep. Pete Olson, ranking Republican on the Space and Aeronautics House Subcommittee, told FoxNews.com that Bolden described the outreach program as part of the administration’s space plan during a conversation they had in June.

“He confirmed it to me,” Olson said. The Texas Republican said he thinks the program existed until the “uproar” compelled the administration to rethink it.

“Rethink” it indeed. So they walk back the story with a blatant lie.

We’re back to where we were before yesterday. This administration doesn’t want to spend money in space, but they do want to spend it on efforts best left to the State Department. Except now, of course, we can also factor into the equation a healthy dose of dishonesty. Instead of admitting that Obama had made a mistake, they dumped the entire blame on Bolden, who wouldn’t be appearing on Al-Jazeera in the first place without getting approval up the chain of command first.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened with the “most honest and open” administration in history…